Some inside baseball:
When XXL originally launched their blog section they didn't plan to pay anyone.
Contrast that with SOHH.com, whose bloggers were paid $500 a month to start. I was paid about 30K a year to be the blog editor.
Somehow Bol sparked a bidding war between XXL and SOHH for his services. Get this - XXL wasn't paying and SOHH originally wasn't interested. But, because the competition for writing talent was heating up, XXL decided to pay all of their bloggers, and SOHH made Bol a competitive offer.
Eskay and some other bloggers who I hired at SOHH, eventually were hired away at XXL.
In a weird, twisted way, Noz, Easkay, and other XXL bloggers have Bol to thank for the original bidding war that made XXL start paying people.
And in a straightforward way, everyone has me to thank for inventing "professional" hip-hop blogging.

There's a reason why I haven't blogged for XXL since a week ago yesterday, and it's not because I'm a lazy bastard or because I was off working like a Hebrew slave at the BGM to supplement the box full of cut out copies of that XXL Raps CD I receive each month, which I then sell to a store tha...

I have a confession to make. I know this blog has been retired for three years, but I have to toe-dip in this pool for just a sec to let all of you know what's real. When the 1,193 of you subscribed to Hip Hop Blogs years ago, you thought the purpose of this site was to share cool links and ad...

I have a confession to make. I know this blog has been retired for three years, but I have to toe-dip in this pool for just a sec to let all of you know what's real. When the 1,193 of you subscribed to Hip Hop Blogs years ago, you thought the purpose of this site was to share cool links and ad...

I have a confession to make. I know this blog has been retired for three years, but I have to toe-dip in this pool for just a sec to let all of you know what's real. When the 1,193 of you subscribed to Hip Hop Blogs years ago, you thought the purpose of this site was to share cool links and ad...